Merry Christmas to Chronicles Readers
I would like to wish all Chronicles readers a Very Merry and Blessed Christmas. And, as a Christmas present, here is a link to a piece I wrote two Christmases ago for Takimag, about some of the things I like about Christmas, including Polish Christmas carols. Since the piece is two years old, most of the videos I linked to have vanished. But, in recompense, here are two different versions of the same carol, Wsrod Nocnej Ciszy. I like the former for its beauty and the latter for its exuberance. Enjoy.
Here's the Takimag piece: Catching the Christmas Spirit
Here's the first video:
Here's the second video:
GOLEC uORKIESTRA DVD-KONCERT KOLĘD I PASTORAŁEK,WŚRÓD NOCNEJ CISZY,
Entries(RSS)
Thank you Mr. Piatak for bringing back memories of my childhood Christmases. My mother was Polish. On Cristmas eve, we would go to my aunt's house (my mother's sister, whose husband had died of polio). After returning from midnight Mass, we would eat and wait up for Santa Clause to make his rounds, with the essential assistance of my aunt. (Her name was Alvina, but from the earliest age, my sister and I called her "Auntie Vina.") I, my sister Penny and my cousin Clyde, who were two years younger than I, and my other cousin, Clyde's younger sister Candy were always surprised and never caught my aunt. Santa's unobserved arrival (and rapid departure) was always announced by sleigh bells. In addition, if there was snow on the ground, not unusual in Kenosha, Wisconsin, there were always sleigh and reindeer tracks in the snow. Each of us got one "big" gift from Santa and the gift was always the same for me and Clyde and likewise for Penny and Candy.
As good as the gifts were, the food was always better. As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, my mother worked as a cook in a restaurant and for our church. My aunt could cook well too. We would have all kinds of Polish food, including cookies and pastries.
I too, would like to wish you and everyone else here a Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year. I also ask for your prayers for a safe trip as my wife and I travel back to Illinois and Wisconsin on phase 2 of our mission to rescue her uncle, who is spending the season in a rehabilitation facility in Waukegan.
Just returned from what has become our new Christmas tradition since I left active duty in 1975. After Christmas eve/midnight services, we (my wife, her mother, and my younger daughter) get up early to open presents. My older daughter and her husband usually join us. (We must be getting better at keeping the spirit of Christmas because I partially filled only one trashbag with discarded wrapping paper and boxes this morning. When the children were younger, I would sometimes fill two or three bags.) Once again this year, my wife had the local Giant bakery decorate a dozen donuts with red and green sprinkles and a message from Santa for my younger daughter, as she has been doing since about 1983. After opening our presents, we all drive across town to my wife's brother's house for Christmas dinner with our entire extended family on my wife's side. That includes my niece and three nephews, as well as my sister-in-law's sister and her family which includes her three children. Now the children are grown and some are married with their own children. We all gather together, with everyone bringing side dishes and desserts as contributions to the feast, ham being the usual main course. My wife brings her famous broccoli casserole, as well as baked beans and sauerkraut with sausage, two dishes that her mother made before she developed dementia. My son-in-law also contributes a pineapple-based dish and a corn casserole, both of which he usually makes at our house the night before (after my wife finishes her cooking).
(Our traditional extended family gatherings also include Thanksgiving at my brother-/sister-in laws' house and the Fourth of July at our house, which usually includes famous Maryland Blue Crabs, for those who like picking them, and burgers, dogs, sausage (Polish & Italian) on the grill. My brother-in-law brings corn for corn-on-the-cob. My wife always makes a giant fruit basket, carving a large watermellon into a basket. She carves a new design each year. When we were younger, we would leave to watch the fireworks, but now we just retire to the family room to continue our visit.)
Now I'm off to finish packing for our trip. You won't hear from me for awhile. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
May all of the staff of Chronicles have a blessed Christmas season!
Merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah to all!
Christmas has come and is actually still around in our climes, with Epiphany coming next Thursday, 06 January 2011.
We celebrated Advent in the November/December Monday chapel services at my school.
My school had a wonderful Christmas program put on by the classes K4-6th on Thursday, 09 December 2010.
My ninety-four-year-old mother and I made our annual trek to Colfax, Louisiana, to hear the harp ensemble deliver wonderful classical Christmas music in the venue of the Colfax Baptist Church.
I was "Isaiah" in a narration in a Christmas cantata by our choir.
My mother and I also attended, on Christmas Eve, a simple but moving service at the Davis Spring's Southern Methodist Church just up the road from our house.
However, Christmas really came with our entire family gathered around an array of festivities from 19 December through 28 December.
We ate at our favorite restaurant one night. Another night, we had a wonderful gumbo. My son and I caught a mess of bream, and I fried them up for the clan. My daughter demanded that I fix fried chicken, which I cook to perfection because I am able to channel my maternal grandmother who was the best a frying chicken in the entire South. My son, a great cook in his own right, made "Geschnizeltes mit Späzel (Spätzle)" to round of the cooking and to round out the tummies!
We had eats which were traditional for me: a Christmas ham, spiced peaches, apple rings, spiced crab apples, rum balls, Louisiana navel oranges and satsumas. We had home-made eggnog and drank a toast of coconut milk, a tradition my father had established.
We will celebrate Epiphany at my school next week.
We have had and are continuing to have a Merry Christmas down here; so, to each of y'all at Chronicles and to each of the readership a very Merry Christmas and a successful New Year!